At the end of each month, I take stock of the previous month. What went well? What did I learn? What brought me a simple joy? These monthly reports are a way to encourage myself to take delight in the littlest of things. I find that Ten Things I Loved allows me to always see the silver lining, even when there are hard moments in a month. And taking joy in the simple things is paramount to how I want to live, making 10 things an invaluable tool for me. Here’s this month’s simple pleasures.

Things I/ We Did

1. A wicked fast but chocked full of fun trip to NYC. The month started with an overnight trip to NYC. I was on the ground there for 22 hours, but it was packed with good things: a wonderful visit with the folks at Karina Dresses, meeting new friends, catching up with old friends, a really fun, meaningful talk with thoughtful women at NYU, and unbelievable fun. I also felt way grown up staying across the street from Washington Square Park and walking everywhere like I knew what was up and where I was headed.

2. aware:: RESTORE My friend, Jen Fowler, and I launched the aware sessions in the fall and we hosted our first official aware:: RESTORE this spring- a reboot of our fall program that is available on Saturdays and an awesome blend of a whole lotta restorative yoga mixed with reflection exercises. The women who came were amazing and thoughtful and it was really just a divine start to spring (well, calendar spring as the verdict is still out on when temperate spring will arrive). Want to join us for the next one? Please do!

3. Time with forever friends. My college roommates came to visit and we laughed ridiculously hard, ate really well, and talked about inappropriate things. Sounds about perfect, eh?

4. Offering a creativity workshop for high schoolers. There is a really fabulous charter school in town that asked me to come do a workshop for some of their students during their “intersession period”. Intersession happened the week before spring break and students could choose a topic to focus on for the week. Some kids did really intensive art projects all week. Others did an Amazing Race all over the place. Some staged a play in four days. And my group studied creative writing all week. My session with them was on creativity– specifically how you keep your creativity fresh if you are in a creative field. If you are a writer, how do you make sure that you keep having ideas to write? I LOVED my time with them– I once said to my mentor in college that I was “MADE FOR HIGH SCHOOL!” when I was talking about how excited I was to start my student teaching– and our conversation generated some ideas for me, too.

5. Taking Happy to a basketball game. So, the college where BF works played the university where I work in the Women’s NIT basketball tournament and so we decided to load Happy up and take him to his first basketball game. He was hysterical. He cheered every time anyone scored– he was all for points– and then took it upon himself to introduce himself to the Carolinas Panthers head coach, Ron Rivera, which left me mortified as while I am a huge Panthers fan, I staunchly believe in public people’s privacy. Happy had heard BF say that the coach was there and point him out to me and though Happy had no idea what we were really talking about, when he randomly ended up behind the coach in the concession’s line, he tugged at the back of his shirt and asked him, “Are you a coach?” Rivera was very nice and after Happy formally introduced himself with a shake of his hand, Happy turned to the most important matter at hand and told the coach that his parents wouldn’t get him a funnel cake.

6. Facilitating a First, Love You workshop for a group of friends. So this was about as cool as it gets. I did a self-acceptance workshop for a group of friends and it was just incredible. Self-acceptance work isn’t easy- it takes undoing years of negative patterns and really forcing yourself to adopt new ones- but sharing that mission with a group of friends totally seems like a perfect way to change course. It was such an inspiring, open, authentic group of women and I look forward to staying connected with them.

7. Facilitating a Writing Your Life workshop at Weather’s Creek Farm. If you are an area writer, you must check out Weather’s Creek. They have a great writer’s series with a monthly writing workshop. I facilitated one on journal writing and then how to take your journaling writing and make it over into another form. Wonderful group of people and great food!

8. Painting my toe nails an impractical color. For whatever reason, I typically stay in a very narrow color palette when I get a pedicure– pale pinks, pale purples, and bronze. I had a gift certificate for a pedicure and I got a wild hair and left with cobalt blue toe nails. Just looking at my feet makes me happy.

9. Hiring a program manager for Circle de Luz. Circle de Luz turns five years old this spring which is an incredible accomplishment. Our oldest class is finishing their junior year of high school and we’re taking them all over the place for college tours (they started with us in seventh grade!). If there is ever an indication of how far Circle has come, it is watching those hijas become young women. It is pretty incredible. Also incredible? All of our hard work has put us in the position to hire a part-time program manager– our first strafer as CdL had been completely run by an all volunteer board until now. We had an embarrassment of riches in terms of candidates and a new program manager will soon be hired. The possibilities are endless!

On the Bookshelf

10. The Hypnotist’s Love Story by Liane MoriartyI spent time reading a whole lot of books this month (three different non-fiction books, one book on tape for the car, and then two before bed novels) but have only finished the two novels. This one was a delightful read. It is the second book I have read by Australian Moriarty and I think I will put all her books on my list this year (and she has another one coming out in June).

What did you love in March? What’s on your list of simple or not so simple pleasures?